Sir John Betjeman CBE was an English poet, writer, and a broadcaster.
He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition.
He is one of the most well-known poets of the 20th Century and was born in London in 1906.
The reason I became interested in him is that we have a photograph of a statue at St Pancreas station taken by our resident photographer, Tate Husband and started looking into the relevance of this.
St Pancras station was originally built in the 1860’s by the Midland Railway to connect London with the Midlands.
But things started to go wrong for St Pancras in the 20th century. First the Midland Hotel closed down in 1935 and the building was used for railway offices. Then it was damaged by bombing during the Second World War and finally changes to rail routes meant it wasn’t being used by enough train services to keep it running.
The formerly grand building was seen as past its best – its impractical design made it hard to convert and it was covered with years of London soot and grime. By the 1960s there were plans to tear it down and redevelop the land into something sleek and modern. But Poet Laureate John Betjeman, a great lover of Victorian architecture, set up a campaign to save it from demolition, and in 1967 it was given Grade I listed status. Just in time too as the wrecking balls were due to move in 10 days later.
Although the station was now safe from demolition, that still left the question of what to do with it. For the next 30 years it fell into decline, the former hotel buildings abandoned and the rail lines hardly used. But its fortunes changed when it was chosen as the new terminus for the international Eurostar services. It took almost 13 years and around £800 million to renovate the station, but by the time it opened in November 2007 it was almost unrecognisable. The buildings had been cleaned of their layers of grime to reveal the red-brick detail, the roof glazing had been repaired to the original design after its wartime damage, and the wrought ironwork was cleaned and repainted in its Victorian light blue colour. New shops and ticket offices were tucked into the arches below the concourse to leave the main space light and open.
The station is also home to the longest Champagne bar in Europe, which stretches along the length of the Eurostar platform. And at the end of it is a statue of John Betjeman, looking up at Barlow’s original ceiling. So if you’re ever passing through St Pancras and stop off for a glass of Champagne, raise a toast to Betjeman as without him none of this would be here today. Cheers to that!
